The Way it is Supposed to Be
by JenniFromtheBlock
Summary: Some fun with Cristina and Owen. All Shonda's property, gently borrowed and hopefully returned in good condition. I dig the reviews, so leave one if you are so moved.
1. Chapter 1

They were in Cristina's kitchen, the evidence of their earlier dinner on the counter surrounding them. They had been in the middle of cleaning up when a few playful kisses had quickly turned intense. Her hand ran through his hair as he trailed kisses across her neck, occasionally dipping down to flicker his tongue along the top of her breast where the line of her scoop neck top ended. He drew his mouth back up to hers, and she could feel how turned on he was as they leaned into one another.

There was a knock at the door.

"Can we ignore that?" Owen mumbled, grabbing her bottom lip between his and sucking on it.

"Mmmmm," Cristina replied. She was sure he had said something, but all she could think about was how his hands seemed to be everywhere at once, and how good it felt.

There was a second knock, louder this time, jostling them both back to reality. Cristina eyed Owen with a frustrated look on her face. "Callie probably forgot her key again."

"I see," he answered, making a mental note to go to the hardware store the next day to make half a dozen copies of Cristina's key for Callie to scatter about where she wouldn't continue to lose them and thus interrupt their make out session yet again. And maybe an extra key for himself while he was at it, he thought, amused. "Answer the door," he said, letting her go, with a last quick kiss on the lips.

Cristina reluctantly broke away from him and went to the door to open it. She was surprised to find Meredith on the other side, who proceeded to walk in right past her.

"So Derek is being an ass again," Meredith began, as if they were in the middle of the conversation already. "We're right smack in the middle of surgery and he says to me that I should…" She had turned back towards Cristina and stopped short when she saw Owen in the kitchen. "Dr. Hunt?"

"Hello, Dr. Grey," he replied. Owen uncorked a wine bottle and refilled his and Cristina's empty glasses.

Meredith gave Cristina a look that Owen caught out of the corner of his eye as he was trying to be inconspicuous. It was a "what the hell are you doing" look.

"Um, can I talk to you for a minute?" Meredith asked. Cristina looked towards the kitchen.

"Go ahead," Owen said, knowing he had no choice in the matter anyway. "I'll finish cleaning up here and wrap up the extra pizza for Callie for later when she gets off her shift." He started collecting dishes to put in the dishwasher.

"Are you sure we can't talk about this later?" Cristina asked. "We were kind of right smack in the middle of something, too…" She saw Owen give a dirty little grin as he put the pizza box in the fridge.

Meredith grabbed Cristina's arm and pulled her down the hall towards Cristina's bedroom. "No, we need to talk now… about…um…"

"Derek's assholiness?" Cristina finished, smiling.

"Yeah, Derek's assholiness," Meredith agreed, pulling Cristina into the bedroom and shutting the door behind her.

"What the hell are you doing?" Meredith exclaimed. "He choked you!"

"Shhhh…keep your voice down. We're having dinner. That's all. Dinner."

"That's more than dinner. There's wine. There's a candle lit in the living room. This-" she pointed with her finger at the closed door, then waved it around, "This is more than just dinner."

"Okay, okay already. So maybe it's more than dinner. But it's not a big deal. Don't overreact." Cristina picked up some clothes off the floor, trying not to look Meredith in the eye.

"Don't overreact? He choked you. And you're still seeing him? He's—What the hell happened to your ceiling fan?" Meredith's eye was caught by the loose wires that hung from the ceiling though a dark ugly hole.

Cristina looked up curiously, as if she had forgotten about taking a hammer to the fan days ago. "Oh, that," she said, nonchalantly. "I decided to get a new fixture."

Meredith shook her head. This made no sense. Cristina was supposed to be the logical sensible one. She just cocked her head and looked at Cristina, not knowing what to say or think.

Cristina could tell Meredith wasn't going to leave without some sort of explanation. She took a breath, and thought for a moment about how to make the situation clear.

"Look. We're trying this again. We're taking it very slowly. He's in therapy. He's not sleeping over tonight or any time soon. He's had a lot of horrible things happen to him, and some of that came out while he was sleeping. It wasn't in his control, but he's getting help now to learn how he can control it. We're not pretending it didn't happen, and we're trying to make sure it doesn't happen again." She sat on the bed heavily. It was a burden being in love with someone your best friend didn't like. "I like him, Meredith. I don't know what else to tell you."

Meredith sat down next to Cristina. "You understand why this doesn't make sense to me, don't you?" She asked.

"Yeah, I do," Cristina answered. "It doesn't always make sense to me, either. But it feels right."

They sat quietly for a moment, thinking about the situation.

"So I'm just going to have to trust you on this, is what you're saying?" Meredith asked.

"Yep. That's what I'm saying."

"Okay, then." Meredith stood up and headed for the door. Cristina got up to follow when Meredith turned back to her.

"So are you having dirty sex with Owen Hunt?" She grinned.

"Ummm…clearly not while you're still here, so you need to leave now if there's going to be any chance of that happening." Cristina opened the bedroom door and steered Meredith back out of the bedroom and down the hallway. Owen had finished in the kitchen and was sitting on the couch watching a ballgame on TV.

Cristina continued to push Meredith towards the front door. At the threshold Meredith whispered to Cristina, "We're going to talk about this more tomorrow."

"I don't think so," Cristina whispered back.

"I do think so," Meredith retorted, backing away from the doorway.

"Go home, Meredith," Cristina said loudly, down the corridor of the apartment building.

"Tomorrow," she heard, echoing up to her from the stairwell. Cristina backed into her apartment and shut the door. She walked over to the sofa and threw herself down on it next to Owen. He shut off the TV and handed her the other glass of wine that had been waiting for her on the coffee table. She took a long drink and then put it down.

"That wasn't about Derek, was it?" He asked, quietly.

She looked over at him. "No. It wasn't."

He rubbed the back of his neck and leaned forward, staring down at the floor. "This is not going to be very easy, is it?" He asked, not looking at her.

"Nope."

He sighed, and continued to look away from her. After a few minutes of silence, she nudged his thigh with her knee. When he didn't respond, she poked his side with her finger. He jumped, and laughed unexpectedly.

"You're ticklish!" She said, laughing.

"I am not," he said, trying to stifle his smile.

She reached over to poke him again and he quickly maneuvered out of her way so that she fell forward on the couch a little. He took her ungraceful tumble as a chance for retribution and poked her in the side in the same spot she had poked him. She squealed a giggle, something virtually unheard of coming out of Cristina Yang's mouth previously, and told him to stop.

"You're ticklish, too!" He said, laughing and pointing at her.

"No, I'm not." She tried to compose herself. They sat still for a moment, looking at each other and trying not to laugh. Suddenly they were both trying to clumsily tickle the other while not being tickled themselves, which turned into an awkward wrestling match on the couch, which soon turned into a kiss, and then another, and another. It was not long before they were passionately wrapped around each other on the sofa, completely forgetting about everything except how good it felt to kiss each other and how their bodies seem to fit perfectly together.

Cristina had a last fleeting thought as they sank deeper into the sofa and Owen ran his tongue along that little sensitive spot she had by her ear. This is how you're supposed to feel when you're with someone who loves you, she realized. This is the way it is supposed to be.


	2. Chapter 2

Meredith turned the corner just in time to see Owen duck into the supply room, and immediately knew it would be a perfect opportunity to give him the best friend talk. She quietly opened the door and entered the room. He didn't notice that he wasn't alone until he heard the latch and spun around quickly to see who had followed him in. He had a flash of disappointment that it wasn't Cristina.

Owen watched Meredith warily. He could tell he was in for it, and waited for the shoe to drop. Meredith watched back, and had a passing thought that his big blue eyes looked so sad. She hadn't noticed that before. She shook her head a tiny bit, banishing the notion from her mind, and took a deep breath.

"Okay, so I know I don't know what's going on with you and Cristina but Cristina is my Person and I love her, and so you need to know that if you do anything to hurt her again, I will kick your ass," she declared, pointing at him.

Owen's eyes narrowed slightly, and the sadness in them turned to amusement at the idea of this tiny blonde person trying to kick his ass. The corners of his mouth went up into a smile just the tiniest bit.

"I love her, too," he said.

"You love her?" Meredith repeated, surprised at his forthrightness.

"I do," he said, standing his ground. They eyed each other in a silent stand-off. Meredith tried not to look as flustered as she felt. She hadn't been expecting this response.

"Does she know that?" Meredith asked, now more curious than anything.

"She does," he responded. He was keeping his answers to a minimum to avoid getting into more trouble. He didn't want to be labeled an ass like Derek had been the night before.

"Huh," she said, more to herself than to him, pondering the revelation. "Well, that doesn't change anything. If you hurt her in any way, I will still kick your ass," she repeated, but this time she said it with less force.

"Understood," he replied.

She continued on as if he hadn't said anything. "And if you pull a Burke you won't even know what hit you."

With that, his brow furrowed and he looked at her in confusion. "What do you mean, pull a Burke? Who's Burke?"

Uh oh, thought Meredith. She took in his befuddled expression, and paled with the realization that he knew nothing about Burke and that she had just dropped the B-bomb on him without Cristina's consent.

"Uh, nothing. Nobody. Never mind. I have to go now." She pointed awkwardly behind her towards the door. "I'll, um…yeah. I have to go." With that, she backed up and left the supply room more quickly and a lot less stealthy than she had entered.

Owen stood there looking at the door as it closed in front of him, wondering what just happened. Who was Burke? And what would "pulling a Burke" have to do with Cristina? He frowned. He wasn't sure what to do with this information, or lack of information. He turned back towards the supplies that he had originally come into the closet to get, but couldn't remember what it was he needed. He left the room and wandered down the hallway distractedly, not having a clue what that encounter was all about.


	3. Chapter 3

Cristina was standing at the nurse's station filling in a chart when Meredith sidled up to her.

"Okay, I did something stupid," she said.

"Again?" Cristina asked, not looking up from her paperwork.

"No, I did a thing. A big thing. A big stupid thing. And you won't be happy about it." Meredith bit her bottom lip and waited for Cristina's acknowledgement.

Cristina glanced over at her from under her lashes, and then gave her full attention when she saw how nervous Meredith was. "What?" She said, suspiciously.

"I was talking to Owen and I sort of dropped Burke's name."

"You sort of dropped his name? How? How does that happen?" Cristina slammed shut her folder. "Seriously, Meredith? Tell me you didn't."

"I didn't mean to. It just sort of came out when I was telling him how I was going to kick his ass. And how come you didn't tell me that he loves you? He loves you! Wait—do you love him?"

"Stop trying to change the subject," Cristina hissed, looking around to see make sure no one was listening to them. "And don't shout it out so everyone can hear!" She considered for a minute. "Did you just say you were telling him you were going to kick his ass?"

Meredith ignored the last question, mostly for her own well-being. "I guess I just thought you already would have told him about Burke."

Cristina was exasperated. "Well, I didn't. And now what am I going to do? I'm going to have to tell him about my one tube and my wedding with no wedding? You are so gonna pay for this."

"I know," Meredith answered. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"No. You shouldn't have, but you did." Cristina frowned, trying to think what to do next. Would Owen bring it up? Should she bring it up? If he said something, should she act like she didn't know what he was talking about?

Meredith fished around in her pocket and pulled something out. She held out her hand to Cristina. "Here. It's an I'm sorry gift. Because I am. It was stupid and I'm sorry." She shoved the thing into Cristina's hand. Cristina looked down at the sparkle pager. She looked back up.

"How long?" Cristina asked.

"Three days?" Meredith responded.

Cristina looked at Meredith as if she had three heads. "Are you kidding me? You owe me at least two weeks for this."

"Five days."

"Ten."

"A week."

"Done." Cristina took the pager and clipped it onto the pocket of her lab coat. She began to gather up her paperwork.

"So we're good then?" Meredith asked hesitantly.

"We're good enough," Cristina answered. "I'm still mad, though, and I still kind of want to kick your ass a little bit. But I'll figure it out."

Meredith smiled. "He loves you!"

"Shut up."

"Okay."

They both turned away from each other abruptly and headed down opposite corridors.


	4. Chapter 4

Derek and Owen sat together in the cafeteria, eating lunch and chatting. Or more, Derek was chatting. Owen seemed lost in thought, and Derek was trying to decide if he should ask if something was wrong. Since Derek became aware of Owen's situation after Owen had asked him for help with his PTSD several weeks ago, Derek had noticed that he had good days and not so good days. Recently he seemed to be on a good streak, but today it was clear something wasn't quite right.

"How's it going with Cristina?" He asked.

Owen's expression seemed to lighten when he heard her name. He had recently confided in Derek that they had begun seeing each other again, and appreciated Derek's enthusiastic support. Not only did dating Cristina seem to make Owen happy, but it kept her occupied, as well; Derek was pleased that she wouldn't be bugging Meredith, and consequently him, at all hours of the day or night.

Owen thought back to the night before on the sofa and smiled. "It's going well. It's going really well, I think."

"That's good," Derek replied.

Owen waited for a moment, seeming to be weighing something. "Let me ask you this," he said, pausing between bites of his sandwich. "Who's Burke?"

Derek stopped, his latte halfway to his mouth. "Burke? You mean, Preston Burke?"

"I don't know. I guess. Meredith just said Burke after she threatened to kick my ass. I didn't know who she was talking about."

The empty chair next to Derek made a screeching sound as Mark pulled it back. He sat himself down at the table and opened his coffee to add some sugar. "Gentlemen—what are we talking about?"

"I was wondering who Burke was. Preston Burke, apparently," Owen replied.

"Burke? Used to be head of cardio, won some big hoohah award not too long ago," Mark replied. "Why?"

"Meredith threatened to kick your ass?" Derek asked, amused.

"Wait, what? Back up. I missed something good here," said Mark.

Owen smiled. "Meredith cornered me in the supply closet and told me that if I hurt Cristina she would kick my ass. Then she mentioned something about Burke, got all freaked out, and left in a hurry."

Cristina's name caught Mark's attention, and he looked up sharply from his sugar packets. "Yang? Are you seeing Yang?"

Owen nodded, silently amused at Mark's reaction. He remembered back to the day that Mark had desperately tried to flirt with Cristina and how she had shot him down without a second thought. He remembered how relieved he had felt when she had laughed in Mark's face, proof that she was completely uninterested in the plastic surgeon. It was also the day that she had told him about her father, and the day he had known for sure just how special she was.

Mark chuckled with this new information. "Well, you're a better man than I am to melt the ice queen, that's for sure."

"Just because she didn't fall for your cheesy pick-up lines doesn't mean she's an ice queen," Derek said. "It just means she has good taste."

"Ha Ha," Mark answered.

"So anyway," Owen continued, steering the conversation away from his purported ice queen girlfriend, "What does Burke have to do with any of this? Meredith told me not to pull a Burke."

Derek and Mark glanced at each other. "Look, this is something you should probably discuss with Cristina. She would be upset if we told you about him," Derek said.

"Yeah," Mark agreed. "And she would take that out on all three of us." He thought for a moment. "Although it would probably be alright to tell you that he did not treat her very well, and she suffered a lot for what he did to her."

Owen slowly sat back in his chair and considered the two of them. "Are we talking professionally, here, or are we talking personally?"

Derek and Mark looked at each other again, unsure of how much information to give.

"Both." Derek answered, after some hesitation.

"I see." Owen rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. It was a nervous twitch that he did unconsciously, and it seemed to happen mostly when he was unsure of himself. "Head of cardio, then? Another attending?"

They both nodded back.

Owen waited a moment, then reached forward and silently started to gather his lunch tray together. Derek could not tell by the expression on Owen's face what he was thinking; he reached out and grabbed the corner of Owen's tray to stop him from leaving.

"Talk to her," he said. "Let her tell you in her own way. Cristina's a private person, and Meredith shouldn't have said anything, but now that it's out, give her a chance to explain what happened."

Owen looked at both of them, and nodded again. He backed away from the table, and then turned and silently headed towards the exit.

Mark and Derek looked at each other and then back to watch as Owen left the room. "Him and Yang," Mark said, "You think they're serious?"

Derek pondered a moment. "Yeah. I do. Maybe more serious than I thought at first." He finished his latte, and stood to leave.

"Huh," Mark said. His face brightened. "Maybe it wasn't me. Maybe she had a thing for the army guy all the time. I probably never stood a chance."

Derek smiled. "Yeah, that must have been it. The army guy was the reason you never had a shot. You just keep on thinking that if it makes you feel better about yourself." He threw Mark a grin over his shoulder as he walked away laughing.

"What? What's so funny?" Mark called out after him. He got up, tossed his coffee cup in the trash, and followed Derek. "Why is that funny?" Derek continued to laugh all the way out the door.


	5. Chapter 5

Dinner was awkward. Both Owen and Cristina were distracted, lost in their own thoughts. Cristina dropped a glass and broke it. Owen splashed boiling water and burned his hand while cooking pasta. It wasn't the easy comfort they had unknowingly become accustomed to, and neither was very happy about it.

Owen had finished at the hospital earlier than Cristina, so he had gotten her key from her and come over to her apartment early to make dinner. The whole time he was chopping vegetables for the salad he kept going back and forth on the Burke situation. He wanted to know what happened to Cristina; on the other hand, if she had wanted him to know, she would have told him. He wanted to know, but he didn't want to have to ask.

Cristina wasn't used to coming home to dinner waiting for her. She stood in the doorway with a small smile on her face, staring at the bouquet of flowers in an old pitcher on the table. How did I end up with Mr. Romance? She thought to herself. She closed the door behind her. Owen turned when he heard the latch.

"Hey," he said, smiling at her.

"Hey," she answered, dropping her purse on the counter as she passed into the kitchen. She stopped in front of him, snaked her arms around his neck, and kissed him. His arms automatically encircled her tiny waist. After a few moments she pulled far enough back from him to peek around his shoulder and see what was on the stove. "I still can't believe you cook, too," she said with a smile.

"I cook a little. This is just pasta. Don't expect too much." He gave her another quick kiss and let her go to turn back to the pot of boiling water. She noticed the wine glasses on the counter and the leftover bottle from the night before, so she uncorked it, poured the rest of the contents in the two glasses, and took a big gulp from one of them. If they were going to have the Burke talk tonight, she wanted to be sufficiently numbed before she had to witness the look of disappointment that she fully expected to see on Owen's face.

After she changed, they sat down to eat, and while the food was good, the conversation wasn't. They were both avoiding the topic of Burke, and they both knew it, but neither wanted to say it out loud. The wine glasses emptied quickly, and another bottle was opened. Cristina became more and more agitated; why wasn't he saying anything about what Meredith said? Didn't he want to know what she was talking about? Didn't he care? She got up to put her dishes in the sink, then turned on her heel and said to him, frustrated, "So you're not going to say anything at all about today, are you? Nothing?"

Owen turned in his chair to face her. He looked at her questioningly; he knew exactly what she was talking about, but decided in that moment that it was her story to share if she wanted to. After all, he loved her anyway, so whatever it was wouldn't make any difference to him. So he decided to be vague. "Today?"

"Yes, today. Meredith. The ass kicking. Burke. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

He rubbed his beard a moment, considering how to explain it to her. "Meredith and the ass kicking. I get that. I know exactly where that's coming from. Pulling a Burke? I don't know what that means. And if you want to tell me, okay. But if you don't want to tell me, that's okay, too." He watched as she leaned back, bracing herself against the counter behind her. Her expression was unreadable. He continued. "I know your friends want to protect you. And you know that I love you, and I seriously doubt whatever you would have to tell me about this Burke person would change that. So if you want to tell me, then go ahead. But it is your decision. I won't ask you for more than you're ready to give."

With that, Cristina's eyes welled up, and a fat teardrop fell down her cheek. Immediately, Owen was out of his chair, crossing the space between them in a few short steps. He stood close to her, taking her hand in his. With his other hand, he pushed some of her curls out of her face and wiped her tears away with his thumb. "Cristina…" he whispered to her.

She looked up at him sadly, and rested her hand on his chest for a moment, leaning into him. Then, she stepped around him, and still holding his hand, pulled him across the room to the sofa, where she sat down, and nodded for him to sit next to her, still not letting go of him.

"Burke was the head of cardio. Not long after I began as an intern, we started seeing each other. No one knew. We kept it secret. It was supposed to be a fling." She sighed heavily. He watched her as she laboriously pondered what she wanted to say, holding his hand tighter and tighter the more she talked. "And then I got pregnant. It was an accident, and I didn't want the baby, and I wasn't going to have it. But it turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy, and one day I collapsed and ended up losing the baby and a fallopian tube."

Her eyes were focused away from him, across the room, and he tried to will her to look at him, so she could see that it didn't matter, that it made no difference that she might only have one fallopian tube, or that her fertility might be compromised, or that she had been with another doctor before she had been with him. "Cristina, you…"

"Don't," she demanded, stopping him. "There's more." She let go of his hand and stood. She paused, then moved around the coffee table and began to pace in front of it. Owen sat back and waited patiently.

She started to talk about the gunshot and the tremor, and how she scrubbed in and became Burke's hand when he could no longer operate the way he was supposed to. She described the surgeries she had performed that were far beyond what should have been expected of her at that point in her education. She talked about the procedures in precise medical terms, perhaps to separate herself from the fact that while she may have had succeeded, it had been wrong of her to put lives in peril to cover up for Burke.

While he listened to all this that had happened to Cristina, Owen began to feel angry. Not angry at Cristina, but at Burke, for taking advantage of the love of this amazing woman, for allowing her to risk everything for him so that his secret wouldn't be revealed and that his pride wouldn't be wounded. And though he didn't want to be, he felt jealous, as well, jealous that Cristina might have once loved another man enough to risk so much for him. Yet, oddly enough, this anger and jealousy was mixed in with some pride that his Cristina was able to successfully tackle surgeries that should have been far beyond her ability as a new intern.

It was clear to him, though, that Cristina knew what she had done was wrong, and that in some ways she was still beating herself up for it. The fact that she had eventually revealed the truth of the situation still wasn't enough for her to completely forgive herself.

She had stopped walking and talking and stood looking at Owen, hesitantly. Tentatively, he leaned forward and reached a hand out to her. She looked at it momentarily, and then gently put her hand in his. He pulled her back over to the sofa and onto his lap, where he wrapped his arms around her tightly and she buried her face in his neck. She felt a moment's relief that if he could forgive her for what she had already told him, maybe the rest would be okay, too.

She lifted her head up to look him in the eye, and caressed his cheek. "There's still more," she said, quietly.

He looked at her and nodded. "Okay."

She put her face back down in the crook of his neck and stayed there for a long while. Finally, she spoke.

"Burke and I got engaged." He felt a little spasm shoot through his heart. The thought of Cristina engaged to another man hurt. It was illogical, he knew; after all, he had been engaged, as well, and Cristina had handled that just fine. Owen realized he might be more of a jealous man than he had thought. Of course, maybe he had never before been with the right woman who merited the jealousy.

"I wanted it to be small and simple, and he wanted it to be big and fancy. He wanted to show off. And then there was his mother. She was just—she was…" Cristina didn't even know how to describe Burke's mother. "Let's just say she wasn't a very nice person. She wasn't like your mom," she said, snuggling even closer into Owen, if that was possible. He could feel she was smiling at the mention of his mom, and it made him smile a little, too.

"Anyway, he wanted the wedding to be this big thing, and so that's what it was. And I was there with this big poofy dress and this ugly family necklace and no eyebrows." At this Owen furrowed his brow, confused, but kept himself from interrupting. "And it wasn't for me anymore, but I was there at this church and I did it because I loved him, and then right before I was supposed to walk down the aisle, he left. He left the church and went home and got his things, and I never saw him again. He left me at the church in a big ugly dress in front of all those people. He left me."

Owen continued to hold on to her after she stopped talking. He waited to see if there would be more. Now he completely understood why it had been so hard for her, so scary for her to tell him that she loved him down by the vent. It was such a huge leap of faith for her to trust him with her love after all that she had been through, after all that Burke had put her through, and even after all that Owen himself had put her through.

He had wondered what could possibly have made her stick by him as he suffered with all of his own issues, and now Owen believed that Cristina was a fixer. She thought that if she loved someone enough, and did what they wanted enough, she could fix them and make them better. So in that moment, he vowed to himself never to put her in a position where she had to go against her own conscience, against her own belief system, against who she was fundamentally as a woman to make him feel better about himself. It was time that someone put her first for a change, and he wanted to be the man to do that.

She sat up and gently slid off his lap onto the couch next to him. "And that," she said, quietly, "is what we call 'pulling a Burke'." She took a deep breath, and then looked back towards the kitchen, wondering where her glass of wine was. She needed a drink.

He put his arm around her, and she leaned back against him, still not looking at him. He played with a few of her curls absentmindedly, and they sat together silently for a while. It was a comfortable silence, and she was vaguely surprised by that. She felt a sense of calm, too; maybe it had been a good idea to get it all out there after all.

Finally, Owen spoke. "I'm glad he left you."

Cristina sat up and turned to him, surprised, and slightly hurt. "What?"

"I'm glad he left you. It would have been much harder to steal you away from him if you were a married woman." He grinned at her, with mischief in his eyes. She couldn't help but laugh at the goofy look on his face.

"Oh really?" She said, with disbelief. "You would have tried to steal me away?"

"Of course. You should have never been with him. He wasn't good enough for you, anyway. Only an idiot lets a woman like you get away." She smiled and flopped back against him. Every moment she felt lighter and lighter; it was an unexpected relief to reveal all of these things that had happened to her and have him still here, next to her, making her laugh. She looked up at him and gave him a quick kiss on the lips, and then snuggled back into him.

He felt her palpable sense of relief, and it made him happy. She had told him more of her past tonight than she had revealed in much of the time they had known each other. She finally trusted him enough to tell him these things and still think that he would continue to love her. And he did. He loved her more than ever.

"I don't think we have to worry about Meredith kicking my ass over pulling a Burke anymore. If I am ever lucky enough to get you in a church, there's no way I'm going to leave." She pulled away and looked up at him. He immediately got nervous; maybe he shouldn't have joked about it so soon.

She watched him a moment longer, and then reached over to kiss him. He expected a quick peck, and was surprised when she pried his lips open with her tongue and flicked it inside his mouth. Soon, they were kissing deeply; the night's disclosures had made each kiss more meaningful, more significant than any previous encounter. They kissed for a while longer, and when they finally breathlessly broke away, Owen spoke.

"You know, since the day I came back to Seattle, I've been trying to figure out why I was the only--," he paused, gathering his thoughts and his courage. "Why I was the only one to come back. There had to be some reason why, but I could never come up with what it was. Why me? Why would I survive and no one else? But I think, maybe, I figured out just a little bit of that reason tonight. Maybe just a small part of why I'm here today. Maybe—maybe I'm supposed to be here. Here with you. I think maybe this is where I'm supposed to be. With you. This is the way it is supposed to be. I'm supposed to be here with you."

He watched her nervously, hoping he hadn't scared her with his revelation, knowing he felt right about what he had said, but hoping he hadn't done wrong by revealing his thoughts to her too soon.

She looked back at him, giving him one of those looks that he knew so well, one of those looks that didn't reveal any of what she was thinking. She was so beautiful that he couldn't take his eyes from her, nor would he ever want to.

Suddenly she took his face in her hands and kissed him deeply again. When she stopped, she pulled her lips a breath away from his and looked in his eyes. I know what you mean, she thought to herself. I know exactly what you mean. She smiled, and he smiled back at her.

With this newfound understanding of one another, they sat back on the couch together, a bit surprised at just how comfortable and how right it all seemed. And that's how they remained, contentedly, late into the night, not wanting to break the spell of this knowledge that what they had was meant to be.


End file.
